B.C. woman continues search for young boy depicted in her mother’s painting

Donagh Czerwinski is looking for a Lake Country man who she’s only seen through her mother’s eyes.

“I am looking for a Jean/Sean Baptise (not sure of the spelling) who lived in Winfield as a child. He is probably in his 60s now. My mom, Jennifer McDonagh was his neighbour,” said Czerwinski in a message posted on Facebook.

“She passed away three years ago, but she has left a gift for him. It’s a painting she did of him when he was young. I know that she would want him to have it. He was a little French-speaking boy that used to follow my teenaged mom around her orchard.”

McDonagh, then 16, lived on Okanagan Centre Road in 1963, when she spent time with the French boy. She painted a portrait of him, which was the first one McDonagh was proud of.

Czerwinski said her mother just loved the little boy and all children, working with the Okanagan Boys and Girls Club and children with special needs.

“She always told little stories of him and smiled,” said Czerwinski. “I know if she were alive today, she’d be all for (finding him).”

So far she had a few people respond to her messages, but the man has yet to be found. If you have any information about a Jean or Sean Baptise living in the Lake Country area during that time period, message Czerwinski on her cell phone at 250-864-4145.